Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan dropped in on Chicago yesterday to talk about the city's seemingly out of control youth violence problem - highlighted most recently by the savage beating of Fenger High School honors student Derrion Albert.

Holder and Duncan deserve praise for raising the profile of the issue, which they stressed is not just a Chicago problem but a national one:

"Chicago is not unique. Four students have been shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma already this year. Philadelphia, Seattle, Miami, New Orleans, and many rural communities have also lost schoolchildren to violence in recent weeks.

But Lynn Sweet reported that Holder and Duncan also announced that the "Education Department is sending a $500,000 grant to help Fenger and the feeder upper grade and elementary schools safer."

The move is well intentioned, but troubling for a couple of reasons. First, what makes Albert's death any more tragic - and thus somehow deserving of a generous disbursement of federal dollars to improve safety - than any of the deaths in recent weeks suffered in other communities cited by Holder and Duncan? Will schools in those communities - as well as those in future areas where kids die tragically from violence - get special grants from the Department of Education as well?

Is it because Albert's death was especially shocking to the public's conscience because it was caught on video? Or because he happened to live in the President's home town? None of these things would seem to justify why Fenger has been singled out for preferential treatment.

More broadly speaking, though a half a million dollars may help Fenger marginally in the short term, youth violence is a problem that can't be solved by money. Only people can.